Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has said that his website will encrypt
connections with Britain if plans to track internet, text and email use
become law.

The measures would require internet service providers such as Vodafone and Virgin Media to keep tabs on every single page accessed by UK citizens.

But Mr Wales told MPs and peers yesterday that it would be relatively easy for Wikipedia to thwart any snooping on how people had been using the site by encrypting data.

This would ensure that while information held by ISPs would show that users were accessing the online encyclopaedia, it would not show what subject pages they were looking at.

He said: “If we find that UK ISPs are mandated to keep track of every single web page that you read at Wikipedia, I am almost certain we would immediately move to a default of encrypting all communication to the UK, so that the local ISP would only be able to see that you are speaking to Wikipedia, not what you are reading.

“That kind of response for us to do is not difficult. We don’t do it today because there doesn’t seem to be a dramatic need for it or any dramatic threat to our customers, but it’s something that I think we would do, absolutely.”

He said any move to break the encryptions would mean the Government having to resort to the “deep arts of hacking”.

“It doesn’t sound like something a civilised democracy wants to be involved with. It’s more like something I would expect from the Iranians or the Chinese, frankly.”

Mr Wales was giving evidence to the joint committee on the Draft Communications Data Bill.

It comes after internet service providers also voiced concerns over the planned legislation, saying that having to retain and store sensitive data from overseas third-party companies which would damage commercial relationships and leave them at a competitive disadvantage.

Mr Wales said the measures threw up “fundamental issues” of human rights and privacy.

Government officials estimate that up to 25% of communications data cannot be tracked, posing problems for the investigation of major terrorist and serious crime cases – and that this “gap” could be cut by the new law.

Critics have dubbed the plans a “snooper’s charter”.

Mr Wales said that any such disruption of internet users’ privacy for law enforcement purposes ought to be done only if it had the “least possible impact” on people who were simply going about their lawful business.